Content strategies have one function, and one function only, to gain valuable insights into customer behavior. Customer insights are an essential part of any highly-effective content. The main goal is to convert. In today’s digital landscape, we can end up with a little too much customer data at our disposal. Even with all this data, it can still be difficult to identify your audience. Or worse yet, know who they are or what they want.
Here’s the thing, most customers online leave a trail of data on social media sites and search engines. This type of data provides valuable customer insights that brands really do need to analyze. A customer-centric strategy means that you’ll use a variety of tools to get your information. It’s really the best way to get a better understanding of your customer. Since there are a lot out there, even for smaller brands, there’s no excuse to not give it a try.
We know that analytics can be somewhat overwhelming. Especially if you aren’t used to digging deeper into data. Besides once you know what information you need, the easier is to create an accurate picture of your customers. This means that you can accurately define your customer personas. Below are 7 of the top customer-centric marketing tools that can help you do just that!
Sure, you might have posted a ton of videos on YouTube, but do you know WHO is actually watching them? Who knows, your audience could be totally different from what you thought. YouTube users post 300 hours of video content to YouTube (ready for it?) EVERY SINGLE MINUTE. That’s pretty insane if you think about it. Plus its analytics can give you a killer amount of customer insight.
In order to find out who your real audience is, click on the ‘demographics tab’. That’s where you’ll find info about the location and age of people who watch your video. Once you know WHO your audience is, you can then create more personalized content. One that caters to their needs and increases conversions.
There’s also a Retention Rate area that shows you the average watch time for the video. This is important because Google uses the retention rate as a way to determine if viewers find your content interesting. If your retention rate is high, your search rankings will be high too. But if the retention rate is low, well you get the picture. Keep in mind that if the average retention rate is low (under 25%) you need to consider reducing the length of your videos.
Yes, you CAN attract more visitors to your site with YouTube Analytics. All you need to do is take a look at the analytics for each video. Especially if you can find out where you viewers actually engage with your content and when they leave. These are integral because once you know when they typically leave, you can add a call to visit your site about ten seconds before then. For more info on how to grow your YouTube Channel, head over here.
Google Trends will give you a completely in-depth look into customer insights. It’s a great way to see if your assumptions about your audience are in fact correct. If you are still trying to figure out which topics your audience might like, Google Trends is the tool to use. Consider the following example…
Let’s say you’re a clothing brand and you want to stay up to date on the next trends in fashion videos. With Google Trends, you can find out which trends are currently rising and falling in the fashion world.
You can compare search terms performance over the years on Google Trends too. It’ll show some of the most popular topics in your niche too. Once you know what they’re interested in, you can create content that specifically caters to their needs. So, if people are interested in the season’s current color palette, you can post a video about it on YouTube.
Google Trends can also help with this too. You can use the ‘related searches’ options to find out the top searches and the ones that are on the rise.
Google Analytics is the most popular analytics software out there. It tracks the traffic to your site in conjunction with the performance of a variety of websites. When you use Google Analytics you can also figure out where your visitors are coming from, their geographic distribution, and how much time they spend on the site.
Google’s Goal Funnel is a pretty important tool for marketers and retail sites. First, you need to set up a list of URLs that the customer will click through whenever they make a purchase. This feature allows you to figure out how many customers are actually going through the process of purchasing something. You can also find out how many of them abandon their purchase at a particular stage. With this information, you can adjust your strategies. Who knows, it just might make the buying experience easier.
Google also shows the keywords that people use in order to find your site. This can be very useful because it lets you analyze their behavior on your site. You’ll be able to find out which pages attract the most visitors AND where they’re coming from.
Google’s Audience Retention tool is a great way to track viewer engagement. It will help give you a clear understanding of who your customers by creating custom surveys for specific audiences. You can even specify the type of data you want to collect. Like age, gender, family structure, geography, even income. Just make sure the data you choose to collect is relevant to your content and audience.
These focus groups are readily available too and you’ll get numerous results in just a few days. Which can be extremely useful if you are writing your brief. Plus, they don’t cost much – pricing starts at 10 cents per response. You can even ask a question and Google will give that question to the relevant audience.
Audience Insights are a lot different than Page Insights and report customer demographics by gender, age, relationship status, lifestyle, and job. This tool also reports the number of likes, purchase activity, and Facebook usage.
Choose the audience whose data you want to analyze. It can be everyone on Facebook, people connected to your page, or a custom audience. Keep in mind that if your site has a huge fan base or custom audience, you need to analyze the first. If you can’t decide on the right audience, choose ‘Everyone on Facebook’. This will give you the most insights.
If you’re looking for a free tool that gives you a real-time analysis of social media, Social Mention is for you. This social media search engine organizes mentions of your brand (on social media platforms) into a single stream. It even includes hashtags, top keywords, and sites.
This tool is definitely a hit with social media enthusiasts. In fact, there are more than 100 social networks that Social Mention monitors. It also gives an in-depth analysis of data and measures influence in four categories: strength, passion, sentiment, and reach.
The Skorr app measures influence and gives users a unified view of even more of their main social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Twitter, and YouTube). It also measures, monitors, and verifies social media behavior across platforms. Afterward, it shows users their analytics across platforms and highlights interactions on each platform to help them grow in their social influence.
Skorr’s insights are based on patent-pending algorithms, that include sentiment and emotion analysis. As well as natural language processing, link analysis, machine learning, and AI. Their goal is to become the new standard when it comes to measuring social media influencers – which is a much welcome addition since Klout’s demise earlier this year. But the best part about Skorr is that it lets users know if their private information is being shared.
With the right research and the right tools, you can get a good insight into your target customers’ habits and buying behavior. All you have to do is try out one of those seven tools listed about and see what you can learn. Who knows, you just might get a better understanding of your customers! Have you ever looked into doing a market research for your brand? Are you feeling a little less overwhelmed after reading this article? Let us know in the comments below, so we can discuss!
